A double-header battle report - I took the Black Legion over to Kasfunatu Towers to fight all-comers!
One Rhino carries the Berzerkers (with Apostle and Exalted Champion) into the fray. Another Rhino brings the Havocs and their meltas up close. A third carries the Death Guard where they can create a plasma firebase. The regular troops hunker down on my objectives, looking after the Sorcerer, while everything else jumps out of deepstrike on Turn 2 in a hail of bullets. The Helbrute is just a distraction Carnifex.
On my side of the table, I placed the Khorne and Nurgle Rhinos centrally, with the Havocs ready to race up one flank to engage the Plagueburst Crawler. The Troops secured themselves in or behind some ruined buildings.
The Death Guard faced off with two Rhinos stuffed with Plague Marines and characters ready to go up the centre - there was a bit of a choke point there with terrain allowing a narrow passage through the centre. On the right flank, the Plague Surgeon was surrounded by a swarm of Poxwalkers.
Kasfunatu won the first turn, but didn't do much damage with his mid-range firepower, other than a general advance with this Poxwalkers and two Rhinos. On my turn, I reciprocated by pushing forward with my own Rhinos, trying to crack open his vehicles so I could get to the troops inside.
The Helbrute did manage to get a shot off at one Rhino, then made the charge, before whiffing all his attacks and getting killed by the mass of Death Guard he had charged into.
The Poxwalker flank had been augmented by the arrival of Typhus, but wasn't really prepared for an assault by my Berzerkers, who chopped all-but one of them into itty-bitty zombie pieces. Typhus was not amused by this and murdered all the Berzerkers, then the Dark Apostle and Exalted Champion.
You'd have thought I would have been more wary. I'd seen a handful of Berzerkers before and here was a non-overwatched squad coming in. Will remember for next game.
On the other flank, my Havocs didn't make it as far as the Plagueburst Crawler, having paused to blast away a Foetid Bloat-Drone with melta guns. But a unit of Raptors did jump down behind the Crawler and spend the rest of the battle chasing it around the field, effectively shutting it down.
Lesson learned: leave something to backup the tank, so that when it backs out of combat there is something there to wipeout the threat.
In the centre, I had used one of my now-empty Rhinos to bottle up the Death Guard advance, which meant I could drop in my Chaos Lord, Obliterators and second unit of Raptors to unleash firepower against his infantry. One squad got taken down and, with an Endless Cacophony stratagem to allow the Obliterators to fire again, the newly-arrived Deathshroud Terminators were wiped out in one volley (I did warn Kasfunatu to take Blightlords instead!)
You did, but it was an unlucky saving roll, and I was expecting one to survive and had CP to resurrect another. I will try them again. Mostly as they are cracking models.
With Typhus dominating the right flank, and having run out of things to kill, and all the vehicles destroyed or shut down, the battle shifted to a ruined building on the left flank where the Death Guard had one squad of Plague Marines, a Daemon Prince, and three characters to face my own Plague Marines, Lord and Obliterators.
I did have a moment of glee when sitting watching my army being destroyed I found a strategem that could turn the fight and save Typhus. It did.
The tide of the battle turned when I drew a Priority Orders Received: Big Game Hunter card. Essentially my Chaos Lord with a melta gun and power fist had to kill a damaged Rhino to claim four victory points. Easily done (although Kasfunatu did explode the vehicle to shower everyone in mortal wounds) and my lead was uncatchable.
Of course saving Typhus got me no VPs and my 1 point per turn cards were no match for the 4vps that Stylus was drawing.
We continued to trade punches: both Daemon Prince and Death Guard marines were mown down by my firepower. My warlord took a blast from the Foul Blightspawn's plague sprayer, but his Unholy Fortitude held him on to a single wound.
By Turn 6, I'd racked up an uncatchable lead in Maelstrom points and most of the Death Guard were destroyed or shut down. The only big threat left on the table was Typhus, but he was isolated and my whole army was avoiding him like ... the plague. We called it.
Tough game; I reckoned I'd lost by Turn 3, as I needed to table to overcome the Maelstrom point lead... but that tabling was NEVER going to happen.
Almost identical to the last T'au list, but my third stealth drone had arrived, and in the essence of speed I dropped a Stormsurge to make up the points.
We debated if you still had the free discard as well as the CP 3card discard, and decided you did. Thankfully.
Same deployment for me as last time: hard-hitters in the Rhinos, with even harder-hitters in deep strike. The T'au lines started with the Commanders and drones on the left, Stormsurge in the centre, and Longstrike and infantry on the right and the Y'Vahra in the Manta above, all behind a screen of drones, Pathfinders and Breachers.
Kasfunatu won the roll to go first, although the shots were not as devastating as I feared, either due to the guns being out of range (and only the Commander and his Stealth Drones daring to cross the midway line) or just having a shocker of a turn with markerlight rolls.
Shocking markerlighting that round. Really really bad. And some bad priority ordering on my part too.
The main casualty was the poor old Helbrute, who blew up for First Blood, and who I had to spend a CP to avoid taking three Havocs with him.
It left my commander and his drones in a risky spot, but I felt worthwhile and was ready to bug out.
On my turn I pushed forward with the armour, disembarked with the Plague Marines to grab a central objective, and plinked off a few drones (and I think my Sorcerer managed to down a Stealth Drone with a super-Smite). Most of my best shooting assets were in deepstrike (a weakness in this list) and so there wasn't much I could do to apply pressure this turn. I would have to weather another turn of T'au shooting.
Super smite is nasty on my expensive drones. Especially when I neglected to fire their big single shot missiles.
I don't weather it that well - Kasfunatu has more than enough guns to point-and-delete my units, and he's learned his lesson about Khorne Berzerkers.
Yes I have... see previous two games...
Their Rhino is destroyed, followed in quick succession by the whole squad. The two accompanying characters survive, mostly because they can't be targeted - even by the plethora of T'au guns - until the screening unit is dead (that becomes important later).
Grrrr....
On turn two, I do my best to drop the hammer: the Obliterators, Lord, two squads of Raptors land in my side of the table, all surrounding the T'au Commander and his drones. I even disembark my second Havoc squad to complete the encirclement. The firing squad doesn't go as planned: despite having all the melta and plasma in the world, I strip away the screening drones, but leave the Commander on a single wound. And then every single unit fails its charge, taking a number of wounds in Overwatch.
I did not deserve to survive that. Some charges were long shots, but several were not.
The only ones shooting upfield are the Obliterators, who I shoot with twice using Endless Cacophony stratagem, all of it going against that hated Y'Vahra. Despite rolling well for my Fleshmetal Guns, the battlesuit either saves them, or passes on a score of wounds to nearby drones.
The final insult comes from the two stranded characters, who've footslogged right under the shadow of the Stormsurge (because they can outnumber him on an objective and claim an unlikely couple of victory points). In all the confusion, I forget this and charge in with the Dark Apostle, who promply dies to Overwatch. The Exalted Champion halts in his tracks, but isn't long for this world either.
The next few turns are the T'au version of whack-a-mole: systematically gunning down my assets while I ran for cover or out of line-of-sight. Being Black Legion, morale held up pretty well. As did my astartes armour - aside from the really heavy artillery, it seems the T'au weren't packing much in the way of AP.
Lots of S5 AP0 weapons and a lot of marketlights that don't want to hit.
Obviously a lot of my stuff was dying, but it was leaving me with scattered pockets of units, and that became significant when the maelstrom cards started to fall my way. I started to grab a lot of easy victory points (Scour the Skies for killing a drone, for example) and because the T'au were still in their gunline, I had reasonably good board control.
Your tactics fell nicely. Either giving you defend orders on objectives you had, or priority orders on easy pickings. I still favour a Maelstrom game over a standard even if the cards don't go your way (as per now). So... I found myself in the same boat as last game... losing on VPs, a decent lead, and needing to table to win... So I switch tactic to tabling.
The upshot was that, as we headed into turn five, I had an unassailable lead in victory points, but my army was reduced to a couple of half squads and a Sorcerer (who actually had quite a good battle - his Smites and Death Hex had been the only things to hurt the Y'Vahra).
And through a combination of hiding in a building (so could only be hit with indirect fire, or through windows), screening with the last of the troops (luckily these were tough Plague Marines), and the fact that the big guns like Longstrike or the Stormsurge had to declare all at once (and therefore couldn't target a character until all the troops were gone), the Sorcerer managed to survive.
Well done
Kasfunatu made the roll of 1 to end the game, which saved my Sorcerer's bacon, and earned me scored me a most-unlikely victory.
It seemed right somehow.
And your unblemished whampings now blemished.
The first battle was one hell of a scrap, but there was never a moment when I felt like I didn't have a chance at winning. This may be because I know the Traitor Astartes armies quite well, so knew what to expect and what to counter.
It was even in points until Turn 3 but I was always on the back foot and was first time trying the Death Guard. Enjoyable game, but inevitable outcome.
Ultimately, I was able to shut down what I needed to, and apply the most force to what I judged to be dangerous. I got lucky with some cards, but it felt like an earned victory.
Good win to you.
... unlike the one against the T'au, where I think I stumbled blindly into the win. Not knowing much about the T'au (and still don't, other than I don't like being shot by them!), I tried to hit them in the same way as I would the Death Guard, and got punished for it.
In fact, I think my best strategy might have been the one I eventually used: hunker down and focus on scoring victory points. By trying to take the fight to the T'au (such as the Death Charge of the Berzerkers), I was just feeding units into the Greater Good. I didn't have the numbers to swamp them, unlike Tyranids, for example, and also that Y'Vahra is clearly my bogey unit.
I love the Y'Vahra. If I didn't think I would be throttled: I would get a second. (my god, you mean it's not even a unique character?)
Still, two wins for The Unkindest Cut - the Black Crusade starts here!
Nicely done. Enjoyed playing in person and finally losing to you in 40k.
It's an infinite universe - had to happen sometime.
I, Stylus, will be providing a brief summary for each game. No images, I fear. We were playing two games of 2000pts, and getting to grips with some relatively new armies, so there was no brain power left for the historical record.
My opponent, and host, was Kasfunatu.
My opponent, and host, was Kasfunatu.
The Unkindest Cut: Black Legion
Give or take a few weapons and icons (based on what was available), this is pretty much the list I want to field with Black Legion.
One Rhino carries the Berzerkers (with Apostle and Exalted Champion) into the fray. Another Rhino brings the Havocs and their meltas up close. A third carries the Death Guard where they can create a plasma firebase. The regular troops hunker down on my objectives, looking after the Sorcerer, while everything else jumps out of deepstrike on Turn 2 in a hail of bullets. The Helbrute is just a distraction Carnifex.
So lots of fast-moving units and assault firepower: strike hard, strike fast, no mercy!
- Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (HQ)
Combi-melta, Power fist
Warlord Trait: Unholy Fortitude - Dark Apostle (HQ)
Bolt pistol, Power maul
Relic: The Black Mace - Exalted Champion (HQ)
Combi-melta, Power axe - Sorcerer (HQ)
Force sword, Plasma pistol
Powers: Death Hex, Prescience - 10 x Chaos Cultists (Troops)
Shotgun, 8 x Autogun, Heavy stubber - 5 x Chaos Space Marines (Troops)
Mark of Khorne, Icon of Wrath, Chainswords, Bolt pistols, Power sword - 5 x Chaos Space Marines (Troops)
Icon of Vengeance, Boltgun, Heavy bolter - Helbrute (Elite)
Multi-melta, Helbrute fist, Heavy flamer - 8 x Khorne Berzerkers (Elite)
Icon of Wrath, Plasma pistol, Power fist, Chainsword and Chainaxe - 7 x Plague Marines (Elite)
Plasma gun, Power fist, Boltguns, 2 x Plasma Guns - 5 x Raptors (Fast)
Mark of Slaanesh, Plasma pistol, Power sword, 2 x Plasma guns - 5 x Raptors (Fast)
Mark of Slaanesh, Bolt pistol, Power fist, 2 x Melta guns - 5 x Havocs (Heavy)
Bolt pistol, Boltguns, Flamer, Plasma gun - 5 x Havocs (Heavy)
Bolt pistol, Boltguns, 2 x Melta guns - 3 x Obliterators (Heavy)
Mark of Slaanesh - Chaos Rhino (Transport)
Combi-bolter, Combi-melta, Havoc launcher - Chaos Rhino (Transport)
Combi-bolter, Combi-melta, Havoc launcher - Chaos Rhino (Transport)
Combi-bolter, Combi-bolter
Armies
The Rylstone Rotters: Death Guard
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| Leofa's Plague Marines used for illustrative flavour. Kasfunatu's have repellent white armour and look awesome. Kasfunatu, post your work! |
- Daemon Prince (HQ)
- Typhus (HQ)
- Malignant Plaguecaster (HQ)
- 20 x Poxwalkers (Troops)
- 8 x Plague Marines (Troops)
- 8 x Plague Marines (Troops)
- 3 x Deathshroud Terminators (Elite)
- Foul Blightspawn (Elite)
- Biologus Putrifier (Elite)
- Plague Surgeon (Elite)
- Foetid Bloat Drone (Fast)
- Foetid Bloat Drone (Fast)
- Plagueburst Crawler (Heavy)
- Chaos Rhino (Transport)
- Chaos Rhino (Transport)
Battle Summary
The mission was Cleanse and Capture, with Dawn of War deployment, so nice and simple.On my side of the table, I placed the Khorne and Nurgle Rhinos centrally, with the Havocs ready to race up one flank to engage the Plagueburst Crawler. The Troops secured themselves in or behind some ruined buildings.
The Death Guard faced off with two Rhinos stuffed with Plague Marines and characters ready to go up the centre - there was a bit of a choke point there with terrain allowing a narrow passage through the centre. On the right flank, the Plague Surgeon was surrounded by a swarm of Poxwalkers.
Kasfunatu won the first turn, but didn't do much damage with his mid-range firepower, other than a general advance with this Poxwalkers and two Rhinos. On my turn, I reciprocated by pushing forward with my own Rhinos, trying to crack open his vehicles so I could get to the troops inside.
The Helbrute did manage to get a shot off at one Rhino, then made the charge, before whiffing all his attacks and getting killed by the mass of Death Guard he had charged into.
The Poxwalker flank had been augmented by the arrival of Typhus, but wasn't really prepared for an assault by my Berzerkers, who chopped all-but one of them into itty-bitty zombie pieces. Typhus was not amused by this and murdered all the Berzerkers, then the Dark Apostle and Exalted Champion.
You'd have thought I would have been more wary. I'd seen a handful of Berzerkers before and here was a non-overwatched squad coming in. Will remember for next game.
Lesson learned: leave something to backup the tank, so that when it backs out of combat there is something there to wipeout the threat.
In the centre, I had used one of my now-empty Rhinos to bottle up the Death Guard advance, which meant I could drop in my Chaos Lord, Obliterators and second unit of Raptors to unleash firepower against his infantry. One squad got taken down and, with an Endless Cacophony stratagem to allow the Obliterators to fire again, the newly-arrived Deathshroud Terminators were wiped out in one volley (I did warn Kasfunatu to take Blightlords instead!)
You did, but it was an unlucky saving roll, and I was expecting one to survive and had CP to resurrect another. I will try them again. Mostly as they are cracking models.
With Typhus dominating the right flank, and having run out of things to kill, and all the vehicles destroyed or shut down, the battle shifted to a ruined building on the left flank where the Death Guard had one squad of Plague Marines, a Daemon Prince, and three characters to face my own Plague Marines, Lord and Obliterators.
I did have a moment of glee when sitting watching my army being destroyed I found a strategem that could turn the fight and save Typhus. It did.
Of course saving Typhus got me no VPs and my 1 point per turn cards were no match for the 4vps that Stylus was drawing.
We continued to trade punches: both Daemon Prince and Death Guard marines were mown down by my firepower. My warlord took a blast from the Foul Blightspawn's plague sprayer, but his Unholy Fortitude held him on to a single wound.
By Turn 6, I'd racked up an uncatchable lead in Maelstrom points and most of the Death Guard were destroyed or shut down. The only big threat left on the table was Typhus, but he was isolated and my whole army was avoiding him like ... the plague. We called it.
Tough game; I reckoned I'd lost by Turn 3, as I needed to table to overcome the Maelstrom point lead... but that tabling was NEVER going to happen.
Result: Victory to the Black Legion
Game 2: Best Served Cold
The Unkindest Cut: Black Legion
I made a few tweaks to weapons (giving the squads some Autocannons and Missile Launchers and getting rid of those damn havoc launchers), but it's basically the same list as above ... the one that got trounced the last time they faced the T'au.
Armies
T'Pau Sept: T'au
Almost identical to the last T'au list, but my third stealth drone had arrived, and in the essence of speed I dropped a Stormsurge to make up the points.
- Commander in XV85 Battlesuit:
4 x missile pods - Commander in XV86 Battlesuit:
3 x Fusion blasters, Shield Generator
Warlord: Academy Luminary
Signature: Vectored Maneuvering Thrusters - Longstrike
2 x Smart Missile Systems, Ion Cannon - 5 x Breacher Squad
Pulse Blasters - 5 x Strike Squad
Pulse Rifles, Markerlight (champion) - 5 x Strike Squad
Pulse Rifles, Markerlight (champion) - 7 x Pathfinder Squad
Pulse Carbines and Markerlights - XV109 Y’vahra Battlesuit
Advanced Targeting System
Target Lock - Stormsurge
- Drones (allocated across multiple units)5 x Gun Drones
5 x Marker Drones
2 x Mk4 Shield Drones
2 x Mk52 Shield Drones
1 x Pulse Accelerator Drone
2 x Technical Drones
3 x Remora Stealth Drone
Battle Summary
We played a Chapter Approved mission this time: Sealed Orders. This can be a real bugger - you start with six Maelstrom cards, and then generate five, then four and so on. But you don't get any fresh cards until every single card in your hand has been scored or discarded. Luckily there's a stratagem for discards, or else you might find yourself stuck.We debated if you still had the free discard as well as the CP 3card discard, and decided you did. Thankfully.
Same deployment for me as last time: hard-hitters in the Rhinos, with even harder-hitters in deep strike. The T'au lines started with the Commanders and drones on the left, Stormsurge in the centre, and Longstrike and infantry on the right and the Y'Vahra in the Manta above, all behind a screen of drones, Pathfinders and Breachers.
Kasfunatu won the roll to go first, although the shots were not as devastating as I feared, either due to the guns being out of range (and only the Commander and his Stealth Drones daring to cross the midway line) or just having a shocker of a turn with markerlight rolls.
Shocking markerlighting that round. Really really bad. And some bad priority ordering on my part too.
The main casualty was the poor old Helbrute, who blew up for First Blood, and who I had to spend a CP to avoid taking three Havocs with him.
It left my commander and his drones in a risky spot, but I felt worthwhile and was ready to bug out.
On my turn I pushed forward with the armour, disembarked with the Plague Marines to grab a central objective, and plinked off a few drones (and I think my Sorcerer managed to down a Stealth Drone with a super-Smite). Most of my best shooting assets were in deepstrike (a weakness in this list) and so there wasn't much I could do to apply pressure this turn. I would have to weather another turn of T'au shooting.
Super smite is nasty on my expensive drones. Especially when I neglected to fire their big single shot missiles.
I don't weather it that well - Kasfunatu has more than enough guns to point-and-delete my units, and he's learned his lesson about Khorne Berzerkers.
Yes I have... see previous two games...
Their Rhino is destroyed, followed in quick succession by the whole squad. The two accompanying characters survive, mostly because they can't be targeted - even by the plethora of T'au guns - until the screening unit is dead (that becomes important later).
Grrrr....
On turn two, I do my best to drop the hammer: the Obliterators, Lord, two squads of Raptors land in my side of the table, all surrounding the T'au Commander and his drones. I even disembark my second Havoc squad to complete the encirclement. The firing squad doesn't go as planned: despite having all the melta and plasma in the world, I strip away the screening drones, but leave the Commander on a single wound. And then every single unit fails its charge, taking a number of wounds in Overwatch.
I did not deserve to survive that. Some charges were long shots, but several were not.
The only ones shooting upfield are the Obliterators, who I shoot with twice using Endless Cacophony stratagem, all of it going against that hated Y'Vahra. Despite rolling well for my Fleshmetal Guns, the battlesuit either saves them, or passes on a score of wounds to nearby drones.
 |
| So many drones. |
The final insult comes from the two stranded characters, who've footslogged right under the shadow of the Stormsurge (because they can outnumber him on an objective and claim an unlikely couple of victory points). In all the confusion, I forget this and charge in with the Dark Apostle, who promply dies to Overwatch. The Exalted Champion halts in his tracks, but isn't long for this world either.
The next few turns are the T'au version of whack-a-mole: systematically gunning down my assets while I ran for cover or out of line-of-sight. Being Black Legion, morale held up pretty well. As did my astartes armour - aside from the really heavy artillery, it seems the T'au weren't packing much in the way of AP.
Lots of S5 AP0 weapons and a lot of marketlights that don't want to hit.
Obviously a lot of my stuff was dying, but it was leaving me with scattered pockets of units, and that became significant when the maelstrom cards started to fall my way. I started to grab a lot of easy victory points (Scour the Skies for killing a drone, for example) and because the T'au were still in their gunline, I had reasonably good board control.
Your tactics fell nicely. Either giving you defend orders on objectives you had, or priority orders on easy pickings. I still favour a Maelstrom game over a standard even if the cards don't go your way (as per now). So... I found myself in the same boat as last game... losing on VPs, a decent lead, and needing to table to win... So I switch tactic to tabling.
The upshot was that, as we headed into turn five, I had an unassailable lead in victory points, but my army was reduced to a couple of half squads and a Sorcerer (who actually had quite a good battle - his Smites and Death Hex had been the only things to hurt the Y'Vahra).
And through a combination of hiding in a building (so could only be hit with indirect fire, or through windows), screening with the last of the troops (luckily these were tough Plague Marines), and the fact that the big guns like Longstrike or the Stormsurge had to declare all at once (and therefore couldn't target a character until all the troops were gone), the Sorcerer managed to survive.
Well done
Kasfunatu made the roll of 1 to end the game, which saved my Sorcerer's bacon, and earned me scored me a most-unlikely victory.
It seemed right somehow.
Result: Victory to the Black Legion
Back in the Locker Room
Well, that was quite a day! Two very different battles and (despite the same outcome), two very different paths to victory.And your unblemished whampings now blemished.
The first battle was one hell of a scrap, but there was never a moment when I felt like I didn't have a chance at winning. This may be because I know the Traitor Astartes armies quite well, so knew what to expect and what to counter.
It was even in points until Turn 3 but I was always on the back foot and was first time trying the Death Guard. Enjoyable game, but inevitable outcome.
Ultimately, I was able to shut down what I needed to, and apply the most force to what I judged to be dangerous. I got lucky with some cards, but it felt like an earned victory.
Good win to you.
... unlike the one against the T'au, where I think I stumbled blindly into the win. Not knowing much about the T'au (and still don't, other than I don't like being shot by them!), I tried to hit them in the same way as I would the Death Guard, and got punished for it.
In fact, I think my best strategy might have been the one I eventually used: hunker down and focus on scoring victory points. By trying to take the fight to the T'au (such as the Death Charge of the Berzerkers), I was just feeding units into the Greater Good. I didn't have the numbers to swamp them, unlike Tyranids, for example, and also that Y'Vahra is clearly my bogey unit.
I love the Y'Vahra. If I didn't think I would be throttled: I would get a second. (my god, you mean it's not even a unique character?)
Still, two wins for The Unkindest Cut - the Black Crusade starts here!
Nicely done. Enjoyed playing in person and finally losing to you in 40k.
It's an infinite universe - had to happen sometime.
Good sounding games! And interesting that the T'au lost the war even if they won the battle. Guess that's always an issue for a gunline, running out of shooting time!
ReplyDeleteHave you tried out the other specialist suit, Kas? The big gun one?
Despite getting riddled with bullet holes, I'd like to face the T'au again (maybe this time without Forge World stuff - their rules team seem to be based in a different galaxy).
DeleteStonkingly good reports. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome.
Delete